Molester gets eight-year prison sentence

After pleading guilty to molesting his nephew during a camping trip near Groveland more than 18 years ago, a Nevada man will spend eight years in prison.

Jeffrey Koski, 48, has never denied the molestation. He pleaded guilty in two separate plea bargain agreements Â once in December and again in March.

But the first plea bargain was dismissed when Tuolumne County Superior Court Judge Eric DuTemple ruled a three-year prison sentence Koski, his attorney, the District Attorney's Office and another judge agreed upon was not enough punishment.

DuTemple said Koski deserved more prison time after learning Koski had a previous 1986 child molestation conviction. That molestation occurred two years after the incident in Tuolumne County, however.

Koski was re-arraigned on three counts of child molestation, then pleaded guilty to two counts of child molestation and one count was dropped. But no assurance of a specific prison term was made and DuTemple then ordered the eight-year term.

Before the second plea deal, Sheriff's Investigator Steve Clark testified at a preliminary hearing that Koski molested his then-13-year-old nephew during a camping trip to Tuolumne County.

The victim kept the molestation a secret until 1998 when he hold his mother, Koski's step-sister, about the incident.

The victim reported the crime to a Napa police detective who then tape-recorded a conversation with Koski and the victim, in which Koski admitted the crime. At the time Koski was living in Nevada.

An arrest warrant was issued but Koski fled to St. Petersburg, Russia, where he taught English and eluded authorities for several years. He was arrested in November by U.S. immigration officials in San Francisco as he was about to board a plane bound for Russia.

Koski was then transported to Tuolumne County where he remained jailed in lieu of $50,000 bail. He has since been transported to a state prison.